A Goofy Foot in Mouth

I have been driving since I was 16 and a half (Mass state law).  That’s about 23 years.  In that time, I have owned 16 cars.  That pins my cars:years ratio at about .7  Some of Megan’s friends make fun of us for getting new cars all the time.  I love cars and yearn for a little of what Jay Leno has.  I don’t know why they fascinate me.   I just think they have a great combination of utility and form that makes them truly unique in the scope of material posessions.  Plus, I seem to always have a new need that justifies a new car.  (Dad, please give me the vette as a dividend payment).   I posted my number on FB a while back and everyone said I was crazy. 

To keep track, I just posted the list on another page from this blog.  I will keep adding to the list and post pictures as I find them.  I’d love to hear what people think about the list and my commentary (even though no one reads this blog).

I am so sick of the fan cam at Patriots games. Every commercial break they flash some yahoos in the 100’s section sitting there nice and calm. All of a sudden “look we’re on the jumbo-tron, I have to jump and yell and act like an idiot”. Please just give me a replay, or highlights from around the league, or even advertisements. Anything but those annoying fans. Watch the game not fake actors.

Oh and while I’m at it, stop doing the wave at Fenway. Grow up you morons. It’s like the only stadium in the world that is not a high school that still does the wave. It’s dumb, annoying, and distracts the players.

This morning, John Dickerson of Slate, posted on FB, “A question I’m noodling: What attributes (not issue positions) do you think a president needs?”  I liked my response so much I will post it here.  It’s a thought I’ve had for a long time and inspired a speech I wrote years ago for the HH at the Temple.  I still haven’t worked out how it all fits together but someday I will.  Or maybe if I am lucky someone will write about it when talking about how great a presidential candidate I am!  🙂  Ahhhh the dream.

On June 7, 2011 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a 79 page report entitled Retirement Income: Ensuring Income throughout Retirement Requires Difficult Choices.  This sounds like really exciting stuff.  Although why would the GAO want to study that?  I wonder what the GAO does…

We advise Congress and the heads of executive agencies about ways to make government more efficient, effective, ethical, equitable and responsive.

Now that is somewhat interesting.  The report talks about people’s personal choices and 401k contribution rates, defined benefit plans, use of annuities, etc.  What on earth has that got to do with making the government more efficient?  Does the government spend money on private retirement income sources?  No, I seem to recall a pretty definitive rejection of an attempt to direct 4% of Social Security funds into private defined contribution plans.  So what does this accomplish?

Even if there was a goal, a useful outcome to Congress, this was in no way necessary.  All of the major private market recordkeepers are regularly studying this exact issue.  Companies like Fidelity, TIAA-CREF,  Vanguard, and numerous other colleges, think tanks and non-profits already do the same exact work.  Why not use it.  There is no need for the GAO to do something at taxpayer expense, that I could find on the internet for free. 

So why did they do this report?  It was requested by the United States Senate.  The letter is in the beginning of the report.  So while everyone knew that a single set of “fair, and balanced” (that expression is in the GAO’s mission statement) facts about entitlements would be useful for a Congressional debate this summer, what did the Democrat controlled Senate ask for?  A private industry study.  Great job guys.  If I were the Congressman from the NH 2nd or junior Senator from the Granite State, I’d call them out on it.